Investing for PokéCoins

Recently I've been investing for a kind of virtual currency. No, not that virtual currency that has aroused both positive and negative reactions alike, but a different kind of virtual currency, one that applies to a game. By the title of this post, that currency is of course PokéCoins, which are used for buying extra items in Pokémon Go. They can be gotten by spending actual money, but it's also just as fun (and cheaper) to get them by playing the game. And it is this process that could be considered tantamount to "investing".

First things first: a primer would be useful. PokéCoins are earned by putting Pokémon in Gyms that belong to a Trainer's team (which means this is another advantage of claiming a team). However, it's not as simple as that. A Trainer can only earn 50 PokéCoins a day, and this is more or less equivalent to about 9 hours of defending a Gym in one particular day. This point becomes important, because the first (few) Pokémon that return(s) from a Gym will return bearing PokéCoins, while the others won't. Think of it as a quota: the first Pokémon that returns having defended 9 hours on that day (using up the quota) will earn the maximum, and others that return that day won't; meanwhile, a number of Pokémon that defend for less time will earn coins proportionally from the quota, but once a Pokémon comes back using up the quota or what's left of it, others in the day won't earn coins.

Herein lies the "investing" portion. Gyms could be thought of as places to "invest" in for PokéCoins, based on activities that occur in them. Gyms where Pokémon rapidly go in and out can be places to earn some coins quickly (a "short-term investment"), while Gyms that don't have as much activity can be places where coins can be earned at a later time (a "long-term investment"). If coins are needed and they haven't been earned, Pokémon can be placed in a very active Gym, and the Gym can be battled and changed out as much as needed to earn the coins, or someone (most likely from a raid or playing group) can be asked to battle a not-so-active Gym with a stationed Pokémon to get coins. Of course, like any investment, there are risks; here there is a chance of Pokémon returning too quickly and not furnishing enough returns in PokéCoins, too many Pokémon returning and not providing returns at all, or Pokémon staying for too long and not providing returns at the right time.

This investment analogy seems to make sense. The Pokémon that Trainers have are their capital, while the medium of investment is the Pokémon Gym, and the returns are in the form of PokéCoins. Every Trainer that puts Pokémon into Gyms is effectively participating in the PokéCoin trade with the ultimate aim of generating as much return as possible for a single day's worth of PokéCoins, which may not always work out. It's much like what people do in the stock market, except that occurs with real money.

Notwithstanding the ability of Trainers to get PokéCoins by spending real money and the fact that this is needed to get more coins than the daily limit, the process to get coins by playing the game is quite an involved one that is in effect "investing". It bears resemblance to real investments, with many of the things associated with them. I personally find this fascinating and appreciable, that I can apply principles of the real world in a game; I'm now interested to see if I can do the same in the other direction and invest some of my own real money to get more of it.

One year ago: To Pre-Order or Not to Pre-Order?